wink     ; )

Matrix thoughts

Was I right about Matrix:Revolutions? Read on to find out. [SPOILERS AHEAD. DON'T READ IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW]

Well...I wasn't wrong, but it's not clear on the first viewing if I'm right either. The whole Matrix-within-a-Matrix thing is definitely wrong, and I'm quite glad to be right about that. But although the movie makes it quite clear that there aren't nested Matrixes, it does very little to explain how Neo can affect the real world or how Neo and Smith are connected. Just two lines here and two lines there. Not enough to prove me right or wrong. Sigh.

I really enjoyed the movie. As an action movie, it was great. As a sci-fi sfx movie, it was fantastic. Then ending was unexpected, challenging, thought provoking and ultimately satisfying (despite the loose ends).

The downsides? Too much of the story (especially from Reloaded) actually ends up being irrelevant or only tangentially relevant. So much of what was presented to us turned out to be backstory. I'm not against backstory, but it dominated, threatening to become the main story. Movies should not focus on the backstory like that. That is the realm of books. In movies, backstory needs to be in the details (see LOTR), not the focus of whole acts. For example, the Merovingian. He turns out to be almost completely irrelevant to the plot. He is interesting if you think that he might be one of the previous "The One"s from an earlier incarnation of the Matrix. But he doesn't actually serve any real purpose. He doesn't move the plot forward. Same with the Trainmaster. And the Keymaster. And the Twins.

OK. I need to get to bed (I have surgery tomorrow after all). I'll post soon with my thoughts on the ending: why I liked it and what I think the entire narrative of the Matrix is.